Discuss the ideas of love in Geoffrey Chaucer and Shakespeare - Essay Example

Geoffrey Chaucer uses these tales to describe the different kinds of love ranging from lust, love at first sight, infatuation and courtly love. ‘The Knight’s Tale”, is about two war prisons Arcite and Palamon who are infatuated by a woman called Emily. To express the physical beauty, the author uses romantic language and tone for instance, “A maiden of radiant beauty” (Chaucer 32). The author uses the two characters in the tale to express courtly love and physical attraction. At the time the author wrote these tales, there were rules and principles regarding courtly love which had to be adhered to.

Chaucer tries to instill these values in the reader’s mind. The author shows that love starts with a physical attraction and gradually grows into deep love; this calls for more efforts in courtship (Chaucer 33). Palamon was the first to set eyes on Emily and describes her to Arcite as “Woman or Goddess” (Chaucer 33). Arcite on the other hand, describes Emily using words such as “The freshness of her beauty strikes me to death”. The author uses these words to depict a teenage like love or young inexperienced love.

He goes ahead and breaks the rule of courtship, when he declares his love for Emily, the woman that his cousin has set his eyes on. They challenge each other in a bloody duel and Palamon emerges the winner. While Arcite prays to Mars for victory, Palamon prays to Venus for love to prevail above victory (Chaucer 63). The author uses the tale to show the thin line between lustful love and true love. Arcite was perplexed by the beauty of Emily and confused it with true love while it seems to be just lust.

Palamon emerges the chivalrous knight who wins the love and affection of Emily (Chaucer, 67). Chaucer tries to show the reader that love is dangerous is not well understood and can even lead to death. The ‘Millers Tale’ brings out the authors idea of deceitful love in marriages. The tale is about a carpenter who didn’t mind the promiscuous behavior of his wife. His wife has a young lover whom he sleeps with in their matrimonial bed. There is a clerk who is also head over heels with the carpenter’s wife (Vaziri 7).

In this tale the author tries to promote his idea of liberal love in marriages. The Miller claims he is married, but is not bothered by his wife sleeping with other men since it is none of his business (Vaziri, 8). In Shakespeare’s sonnets, love does not have a single definition and ranges from platonic love to romantic love. The author depicts love as a strong internal force that overcomes even the external obstacles. In sonnet 3, the author quotes “Despite of wrinkles this golden time” showing that true love does not age with time even if the physical body appearance changes.

The author uses a variation of wording in his sonnets from smooth, to rough language. In sonnet 18, the lover is compared to a summer day with a golden complexion. Shakespeare uses these metaphors to bring out personal love as a gentle feeling or emotion. This language is different from that of sonnet 130, where the language seems rough and unromantic. He quotes “And in some perfumes is there more delight, than in the breath that from my mistress reeks” (Shakespeare and Booth 130). The words used in these stanzas display a force of love that overpowers the society’s definition of physical beauty.

According to Shakespeare, love is in the eyes of the